The invasion of Iraq was a turning point on to a path that led towards Ukraine

Peter Beaumont n 20 March 2003, as bombs and missiles from the US-led coalition rained on Iraqi cities in the opening “shock and awe” campaign against Saddam Hussein, the tectonic plates of the post-Second World War international order shifted permanently. For those of us who covered the run-up to the war, the invasion and the long… Read More The invasion of Iraq was a turning point on to a path that led towards Ukraine

20th March 2023 Dilip

March 18, 1871: Revolt of the Paris Commune; March 18, 1921: The Bolsheviks crush the Kronstadt sailors’ rebellion against tyranny

Paris Commune: The revolt dividing France 150 years on Over 150 years after the Paris Commune, rival passions flare over how to remember the city’s brief and much-romanticised experiment in power to the people. The first act of the city’s famous insurrection came on 18 March 1871, when crowds stopped troops from requisitioning cannons parked… Read More March 18, 1871: Revolt of the Paris Commune; March 18, 1921: The Bolsheviks crush the Kronstadt sailors’ rebellion against tyranny

18th March 2023 Dilip

Putin enables the lifestyle of Russia’s elite – until they lose faith, there is little hope of peace

Olga Chyzh A year into its war, Russia is not any closer to accomplishing its objectives in Ukraine. And yet, to the surprise of western observers, neither battlefield losses nor economic misfortunes have softened its initial demands of demilitarisation and regime change in Ukraine. If there is one thing that’s clear, even in the proverbial fog… Read More Putin enables the lifestyle of Russia’s elite – until they lose faith, there is little hope of peace

18th March 202318th March 2023 Dilip

Formula Pinochet: Chilean Lessons for Russian Liberal Reformers during the Soviet Collapse

Tobias Rupprecht Journal of Contemporary History: Vol. 51, No. 1, Special Section: The Dark Side of Transnationalism (January 2016) Numerous references to the Chilean military dictator Augusto Pinochet run through Soviet and Russian political discourse from the 1970s to the late 1990s. Official representations of Pinochet, a carefully constructed bogeyman of Soviet domestic and foreign… Read More Formula Pinochet: Chilean Lessons for Russian Liberal Reformers during the Soviet Collapse

17th March 202317th March 2023 Dilip

At the Kremlin in 1943

Stalin presented Orthodox leaders with a proposal: the Soviet state that had destroyed their Church would bring it back In September 1943, as the tide of the Second World War was turning in the Soviet Union’s favour, the Soviet leader Joseph Stalin called a meeting at the Kremlin. Alongside the foreign minister Vyacheslav Molotov and… Read More At the Kremlin in 1943

15th March 202315th March 2023 Dilip

March 8, 1917: February Revolution begins in Russia

In January 1917, General Aleksandr Krymov returned from the Eastern Front and sought a meeting with Michael Rodzianko, the President of the Duma. Krymov told Rodzianko that the officers and men no longer had faith in Nicholas II and the army was willing to support the Duma if it took control of the government of Russia. “A revolution is imminent and… Read More March 8, 1917: February Revolution begins in Russia

7th March 20236th March 2023 Dilip

Marina Ovsyannikova says she still fears for her life after ‘chaotic’ escape to France

Marina Ovsyannikova, the former Russian state TV editor who famously interrupted a live news broadcast to protest against the start of the Ukraine war, has described her “chaotic” escape from house arrest in Moscow and how she fled across Europe to seek asylum in France. “I didn’t want to emigrate until the very last moment,” Ovsyannikova said… Read More Marina Ovsyannikova says she still fears for her life after ‘chaotic’ escape to France

11th February 202311th February 2023 Dilip

‘Only love can save those who are infected with anger.’ Nobel laureate Svetlana Alexievich speaks to Staffan Julén

“A feeling grew on me that people didn’t talk about the things that really matter in human lives“ First posted January 26, 2018 Belarusian journalist and author Svetlana Alexievich was awarded the 2015 Nobel Prize in Literature for her work documenting the lives of Soviet and post-Soviet citizens. Her latest project, about love, is the… Read More ‘Only love can save those who are infected with anger.’ Nobel laureate Svetlana Alexievich speaks to Staffan Julén

5th February 20235th February 2023 Dilip

The Ghosts of Kennan

Lessons From the Start of a Cold War. By Fredrik Logevall January/February 2023 We all read him, those of us who did graduate work in U.S. diplomatic history in the late 1980s and early 1990s. For although there were other important figures in modern U.S. foreign relations, only one was George Kennan, the “father of containment,”… Read More The Ghosts of Kennan

3rd January 20233rd January 2023 Dilip

The revenge of history in Ukraine: year of war has shaken up world order

The Ukrainian writer Oksana Zabuzhko recalls a quote attributed to Otto von Bismarck: “Wars are not won by generals, but by schoolteachers and parish priests.” It’s a country’s taught collective memory, its shared sense of its own history, that are the decisive instruments for mobilisation, and are as important on the battlefield as weaponry. Few… Read More The revenge of history in Ukraine: year of war has shaken up world order

26th December 202227th December 2022 Dilip

After the truth-shower

Philosophy, history, literature, current affairs, and other stuff. Posted by Dilip Simeon

Tag: Russia